Authors: Heather Cullman
As she scrubbed the soaped area, diligently working it into a froth, she miserably contemplated the hour at which she must rise. Five o’clock. She must rise at five. Why, it was inhumane, that’s what it was; inhumane to require a person to wake so ungodly early. Well, it was inhumane if the person in question was of quality. It was quite all right to expect those of the lower classes to rise before dawn. Such hardship was their lot in life, which they must accept without question or complaint.
She, on the other hand, was born to live a privileged life, thus giving her the right to protest every discomfort. And protest she would, the moment her uncle rescued her.
Sophie smiled at the thought of that happy day. How gratifying it would be to finally voice her grievances, what a relief to vent her outrage at having suffered them. Most pleasurable of all would be shedding her servants rags.
Pausing from her scrubbing, she glanced down at her work clothes, shuddering at the sight of them. Because she, as maid-of-all-work, had little or no contact with the family, her attire was selected more for thrift than appearance. Therefore, instead of getting one of the crisp, blue-sprigged muslin gowns the house and chambermaids wore, she was issued a limp, linsey-woolsey skirt and an old-fashioned jacket bodice made of what felt like burlap.
And, oh! That bodice was awful. Not only was it inexpertly dyed a blotchy mustard yellow, it had a waist, a real one that defined her figure in a most demode manner. Paired with the faded brown-and-green-print skirt, she looked as if she’d tumbled from a thirty-year-old rag barrel. And don’t even get her started on her cap!
Groaning aloud at the frightfulness of her attire, Sophie resumed scrubbing. As wonderful as it would be to voice, vent, and shed, the best part of her uncle’s return would be her release from slavery. Between the scrubbing, dusting, polishing, fetching, and whatever other odious chore anyone thought to fling her way, the business of being a maid was drudgery of the worst kind. One had only to look at her hands to see that it was so.
Giving the carpet a final scrub, she tossed her brush into the bucket and picked up her rag. As she blotted the moisture from the now clean, but wet carpet, she grimly eyed her rough red hands. With luck and at least a month of nights spent sleeping in cosmetic gloves, she might be able to restore them to their former glory.
Maybe. She dropped the rag into her basket and extracted a dry brush. Her strokes long and even, she swept the carpet, carefully smoothing its ruffled nap. That finishing touch done, she straightened up and examined her work.
Unlike the dining room carpet she’d attempted to clean on Thursday, this time she hadn’t made the dye bleed. Or the wool pill. Or the edges ravel. Why, if her eyes didn’t deceive her, she’d even managed to remove the entire stain.
Leaning down, she sniffed the freshly cleaned area, ammonia and clove … Ox Gall soap. M-m-m. Not so much as a lingering trace of dog odor. Perfect.
Curiously pleased by her accomplishment, she straightened back up and repacked her basket. With the basket and bucket in one hand, and the paper full of droppings gingerly clasped between two fingers of the other, she rose. As she did so, she heard the tread of heavy footsteps ascending the nearby family staircase.
Oh, botheration! It had to be Lord Beresford coming to bid his ailing wife good night. Mrs. Pixton had warned her that he might do so, admonishing her to be quick about her task so as not to offend him with the sight of her person.
Fearful of receiving yet another scolding, she backed toward the unlit far wall. As she slipped into the shadows, a dark form came into view.
From her brief glimpses of his lordship, Sophie knew him to be tall and strongly built. But this man! Why, he was huge. A regular giant, rather like —
Lyndhurst. Her heart missed a beat. Dear heavens. Could it indeed be the Earl of Beastliness?
No. Of course not. Whatever would he be doing here? She must be daft from sleeplessness to even conceive such a notion. Nonetheless, she kept a wary eye on the figure as she stepped deeper into the shadows.
H-m-m. How very odd. He wore his greatcoat and hat. However had he gotten past Dickson without relinquishing them? From the bits and scraps she’d overheard in the kitchen, he took the utmost pride in the immediacy with which he appropriated visitors’ outdoor garments. It was thinking of the majordomo that prompted her to make another, more disturbing, observation: The man was unescorted.
A niggling sense of disquiet pricked her mind. Whatever was he doing stalking about the family wing at this hour of the night? Even if Dickson was for some reason away from his post, the gentleman should know better than to run tame in someone else’s house …
Unless he was no gentleman. Her disquiet exploded into a full-blown case of alarm. Oh, heavens! What if he was the maniacal, murderous fiend Lydia’s brother had mentioned? The one who broke into country houses and butchered everyone in their beds?
A scream welled up in her throat. It was him. It had to be. Who else would be lurking about the halls at this hour of the night, and in his coat to boot?
As Sophie stood poised to scream, the man bowed his head and removed his tall hat. Candlelight, soft and flickering, washed over his hair. Her scream escaped as a squeak. His hair was a deep, rich lustrous brown burnished with gleaming copper highlights —
Like Lyndhurst’s.
Tucking his hat beneath his arm, he reached up and adjusted his neck cloth, lifting his face as he did so —
His scarred face.
Thump! Bang! Slosh!
The bucket and basket slipped from her hand, loudly spattering their contents across the parquet floor.
Lyndhurst’s head snapped in her direction.
In the next instant the marchioness’s chamber door burst open and out stalked the marquess. “What in Hades is that noise?” he bellowed. “Don’t you cabbage-heads know that your mistress — ” He stopped abruptly at the sight of Lyndhurst.
Lyndhurst nodded. “Father.”
“Colin! My dearest boy!” Crowing his delight, the marquess dashed the short distance to Lyndhurst and swept him into a vigorous embrace. “Ah, Colin. Can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. Your mother’s been in a stew wondering when you’d arrive.”
Colin? Sophie frowned as the marquess gave Lyndhurst another hug. But his name was Nicholas, not — She almost groaned aloud. But of course. Colin was a nickname for Nicholas. Lyndhurst must be the “young Colin” to whom Mrs. Pixton had referred. Expecting “young Colin” to break from his father and brand her as the felon she was, Sophie shrank against the shadowy wall.
To her bewilderment his first utterance wasn’t one of denouncement, but a polite inquiry. “How is Mother this evening?”
Mystified, she hazarded a glance at his face. He gazed at his father, ignoring her as if she were any other servant. Could it be that he hadn’t recognized her after all? As she pondered that heartening notion, the marquess chuckled and released him.
Draping his arm around his son’s shoulders, he led him toward the marchioness’s room, replying, “If you ask her, she shall no doubt profess to be dying.” He chuckled again. “I, however, doubt her claim. She was in the best of health until you wrote her of the unfortunate Barrington affair. Two hours after reading your letter she lay upon her bed, moaning some nonsense about dying without holding your children. You know how she desires grandchildren.”
Lyndhurst groaned. “After years of suffering her matchmaking and being needled about ‘doing my family duty,’ how could I not know? She’s relentless in her efforts to get me buckled.”
“Well, I doubt she shall let up until she’s successful,” the marquess replied, coming to a stop before his wife’s door. “Indeed, I suspect that the Barrington business has driven her to hatch a desperate new matchmaking scheme.”
“What!” Lyndhurst more spat than uttered the word.
His father nodded. “Afraid so. How else can you explain the way she fell ill like she did?”
“And why else would she summon me, and only me, to her bedside,” Lyndhurst moaned. “If she were truly dying, she’d want Quent by her side as well. How could I have been such a cods-head? I should have thought of that and guessed her illness to be the bait in another of her matrimonial traps.”
The marquess patted his arm. “Well, she’s caught you, and there’s nothing to do for it now but find out what, or more precisely, for whom she’s trapped you.” Grasping the doorknob, he inquired, “Shall we?” At Lyndhurst’s nod he opened the door and disappeared inside.
Lyndhurst, however, remained poised outside. After a beat he slowly turned his head.
Sophie gasped and shrank into the shadows, praying that he hadn’t and wouldn’t recognize her. The instant she saw his face, she knew that her prayers had again gone unanswered.
He looked wrathful, bitterly so.
She shrank back a fraction more, shaking her head over and over again, mutely begging for the mercy she knew he wouldn’t grant.
He tipped his head to the side, as if considering her plea, then smiled. Nodding once he stalked into his mother’s room, closing the door behind him.
Sophie shivered, chilled by the ominous message behind his response.
His smile was a threat, his nod a promise.
Bloody hell! What was she doing here?
Finger by clenching finger, Nicholas pried his hand from the doorknob, his composure shattered by his encounter with Sophie. He’d thought to find peace at Hawksbury, to escape the prying eyes of the ton and lick his wounds in private. Instead he’d found
her,
the false-hearted chit who had crushed his confidence and instilled a crippling sense of inadequacy; the same shallow baggage responsible for reawakening his self-consciousness about his scar.
Hating his new vulnerability and her even more for provoking it, he dropped his hand to his side, balling it into a fist in his tension. Well, he’d be damned if he’d allow her to continue hiding there, which was undoubtedly what she did, hide from her creditors. No. He intended to corner her the instant he finished speaking with his mother, and find out exactly how she’d wormed her way into service there. Then he’d … he’d … well, then he’d decide upon a fitting manner in which to deal with her.
A bitter smile curled his lips at that thought of dealing with her. The most fitting manner of doing so would be to make her pay for her treachery, something that would be ridiculously easy given her current situation. Indeed, by styling herself as a maid and taking refuge in service there, she’d unwittingly given him the upper hand.
His smile broadened into an exceedingly wicked grin as he considered the possibilities of that hand. Oh, but this was rich! By the mere act of accepting a position at Hawksbury, she had agreed to subjugate herself to the Somerville family — the
entire
family. That meant that as the Somerville son and heir, he had every right to command her as he pleased. And as their servant, she had no choice but to obey. Not if she wished to preserve her position …
And his silence. Or so he’d allow her to believe. He almost laughed aloud in his sardonic glee. Had the goosecap deigned to listen to his views on debtors and their imprisonment, she’d know that he’d never turn her over to her creditors, not even if she defied him at every turn. Since, however, she’d ignored —
“Colin? Is something amiss with the door?”
Nicholas started, his father’s voice jerking him from his vengeful trance. “What? No. Sorry.” Blinking twice to fully regain his sense of time and place, he turned, staring at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time.
Salmon, sienna, and blue-patterned wallpaper graced the walls, hues that were echoed in the thick Axminster carpet at his feet. To his right arched a richly sculpted fireplace next to two tapestry chairs and a tambour, upon which was stretched a needlework masterpiece in progress. Against the far wall, set beneath a jewellike expanse of mullion windows, was his mother’s dainty tulipwood desk, cluttered, as usual, with favored books and lovingly preserved letters.
He blinked again, then smiled. Everything was exactly as it had been since his earliest childhood memories …
Everything except Mother, he amended, his heart missing a beat as he focused on the bed to his left. So alarmingly pale was her normally rosy face, that he instantly wondered at his father’s wits for questioning the legitimacy of her illness.
As he stood gaping, too appalled to do anything else, she smiled weakly and rasped, “Colin, my dearest son. Do come give your mother a kiss. I have — ” She broke off abruptly, her eyes bulging as if in surprise. In the next instant they rolled back in her head, and she succumbed to a frightening fit of chokes and twitches.
Galvanized by fear, Nicholas forcibly uprooted his shock-planted feet and hurried across the room.
“Colin.” She sighed, then fell deathly still.
His eyes blurred with tears, he clasped her limp head to his breaking heart, sobbing, “Mother… please … I love you …”
She stirred faintly against his breast. “What a good boy you are to come and be with me in my final days.”
“No. No!” He gave her a fierce hug. “I shall suffer no such talk from you. Do you hear? Not a word! You shall be in prime twig in no time at all. Indeed, I shan’t be a whit surprised if you’re up and ordering us all about by the end of the week.” Praying without hope that his words would prove true, he laid her back upon her pillows and kissed her cheeks.